Deviance and Social Control

A violation of contextual, cultural, or social norms.

The regulation and enforcement of norms.

The means of enforcing rules.

Sanctions that occur in face-to-face interactions.

Sanctions that are officially recognized and enforced.

A behavior that violates official law and is punishable through formal sanctions.

Attacks based on a person's race, religion, or other characteristics.

A violation of norms that does not result in any long-term effects on the individual's self-image or interactions with others.

Deviance that occurs when a person's self-concept and behavior begin to change after being labeled as deviant by society.

Crime committed by white-collar workers in a business environment.

A label that describes the chief characteristic of an individual.

Whether an act is labeled deviant or not depends on many factors, including location, audience, and the individual committing the act (Becker 1963). Listening to your iPod on the way to class is considered acceptable behavior. Listening to your iPod during your 2 p.m. sociology lecture is considered rude. Listening to your iPod when on the witness stand before a judge may cause you to be held in contempt of court and consequently fined or jailed. As norms vary across cultures and time, it makes sense that notions of deviance change also. Fifty years ago, public schools in the United States had strict dress codes that, among other stipulations, often banned women from wearing pants to class. Today, it's socially acceptable for women to wear pants, but less so for men to wear skirts. In a time of war, acts usually considered morally reprehensible, such as taking the life of another, may actually be rewarded. Whether an act is deviant or not depends on society's response to that act.

All societies practice social control, the regulation and enforcement of norms. The underlying goal of social control is to maintain social order, an arrangement of practices and behaviors on which society's members base their daily lives.

the means of enforcing rules are known as sanctions. Sanctions can be positive as well as negative. Positive sanctions are rewards given for conforming to norms. Negative sanctions are punishments for violating norms. Informal sanctions emerge in face-to-face social interactions. Formal sanctions, on the other hand, are ways to officially recognize and enforce norm violations.

Since the early days of sociology, scholars have developed theories that attempt to explain what deviance and crime mean to society. These theories can be grouped according to the three major sociological paradigms: functionalism, symbolic interactionism, and conflict theory.

Émile Durkheim believed that deviance is a necessary part of a successful society. One way deviance is functional, he argued, is that it challenges people's present views (1893). For instance, when black students across the United States participated in sit-ins during the civil rights movement, they challenged society's notions of segregation.

Access to socially acceptable goals plays a part in determining whether a person conforms or deviates. Conformity: Those who conform choose not to deviate. They pursue their goals to the extent that they can through socially accepted means. 2. Innovation: Those who innovate pursue goals they cannot reach through legitimate means by instead using criminal or deviant means. 3. Ritualism: People who ritualize lower their goals until they can reach them through socially acceptable ways. These members of society focus on conformity rather than attaining a distant dream. 4. Retreatism: Others retreat and reject society's goals and means. Some beggars and street people have withdrawn from society's goal of financial success. 5. Rebellion: A handful of people rebel and replace a society's goals and means with their own. Terrorists or freedom fighters look to overthrow a society's goals through socially unacceptable means.

Social disorganization theory deviance arises from: Weak social ties and a lack of social control; society has lost the ability to enforce norms with some groups. In the Cultural Deviance theory, deviance arises from: Conformity to the cultural norms of lower-class society

Learning and modeling deviant behavior seen in other people close to the individual

Labeling theory deviance arises from: The reactions of others, particularly those in power who are able to determine labels. Primary deviance is a violation of norms that does not result in any long-term effects on the individual's self-image or interactions with others. when a person's self-concept and behavior begin to change after his or her actions are labeled as deviant by members of society.

deviance arises from inequalities in wealth and power that arise from the economic system

Ability of those in power to define deviance in ways that maintain the status quo

There are three branches of the U.S. criminal justice system: the police, the courts, and the corrections system.

a violation of contextual, cultural, or social norms.

a violation of contextual, cultural, or social norms.